


The Little Things

by imaginary_iby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days when Steve and Danny are joined at the hip, and then there are days when they need their own space - life is about compromise.  Despite the odds, they make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this! I don't think I'm quite finished with the idea, so if you know of any funny domestic situations or quirky relationship compromises and want to share, please feel free!

“I blame you for this,” Steve grumbled as he struggled and failed to keep his eyes open. Deliciously hot water was sluicing down his back and over his shoulders; it was the most achingly pleasant sensation he knew, second only to being buried tight inside Danny of a midnight hour. With a belly-deep moan of happiness, he leaned back against the glass wall of the stall. The cold surface nipped jarringly at his skin for a few seconds, before warming beneath his body.

Danny, gaze trained on the sight of Steve’s ass pressed up to the glass, merely hummed in contented acceptance.

“Really,” Steve continued, opening his eyes and tilting his head away from the spray. “This is all your…” he trailed off, momentarily entranced as Danny stepped out of his stolen-and-far-too-long Navy sweatpants. Steve shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Your… your fault. I used to be able to shower in under three minutes. I used to be up at zero-five for a swim. All those years of Navy training. Half a life-time. Gone. Now it’s zero-six-thirty and I’m still in the shower.”

With an eyebrow raised, Danny stepped into the stall, hands immediately seeking out Steve’s hips for balance as he closed his eyes. “Don’t worry, babe, I’m sure you can still kill a man with sheer masculinity and your wisdom teeth. And hey, if all else fails, just remember that you still speak in twenty-four hour time.”

Steve merely deigned to roll his eyes, and their conversation died away. After a few moments of maneuvering each other around under the spray, they ended up chest to chest, each with a hip and shoulder pressed to the wall. There they stood, half asleep, propping each other up as the water splashed over their sides. 

Silence. For longer than either of them cared to admit, they breathed each other in, the slow and steady inching in and out of their chests the only movement. 

With a soft snort, Danny startled awake, momentarily prey to a Hypnic Jerk.

Steve, who was wrapped around and over him like an octopus, tensed, fingers curling into preparatory fists.

Danny knew that his partner didn’t deal with surprises in his sleep particularly well. “Sshh,” he whispered, sliding his palm over the curve of Steve’s ass and pressing his fingertips possessively into the muscle. “S’okay. G’backtersleep.” He left his hand there, for comfort.

After a few seconds, Steve hummed in acceptance, closing his eyes and settling back in to his doze, temple pressed to the glass and hands, now unclenched, curled around Danny’s hips. 

It was all Danny could do, to tear his gaze away from the sight of Steve’s wet eyelashes pressed gently to his cheek-bones. Sleep called, however, and soon they were tucked close together again. The small part of Danny’s brain that wasn’t shrouded in fog, made a mental note to enjoy the feel of Steve’s cock, soft and wet and warm, nestled against the scratch of his blonde belly-hair. He didn’t quite know why their morning showers never took a turn for the dirty – they were both fans of morning quickies, and some of the best sex of his life had happened in this very shower after they’d gone swimming of an afternoon. But for reasons unknown, when they showered together before work, it tended to be more embarrassing mush than sexual fireworks.

Eventually, as always, reality began to set in. The noise of the outside world waking up for the day permeated their sleep, and they had no choice but to stir. Nuzzles gave way to passing the soap. Possessive caresses gave way to economically rubbing in shampoo, and before they knew it, they were both dry and dressed and ready to face the day.

\----

Showering together was all well and good, but it hadn’t taken them long to learn that for the sake of their sanity, some activities were best completed well away from each other. 

Exercise, in particular. When he’d first moved in, Steve had innocently tried to incorporate Danny into his work-out regimen. For all his mocking of Danny’s less than stellar dietary habits, it was perfectly obvious to even the biggest idiot that Danny was extremely fit.

What he hadn’t taken into consideration, was the fact that they were both very competitive. A four-mile run had slowly morphed into a six-mile run, then an eight. One morning they’d just kept going and going and going until it had bordered on the ridiculous. Danny, eventually, had accepted defeat in a blaze of indignation and sweat, bent over with his hands braced on his knees.

To be perfectly frank, Steve had only _just_ managed to fight the urge to smirk triumphantly. Just because he loved Danny, didn’t mean he’d had a personality transplant – forty percent of their relationship involved egging each other on. As long as he knew Danny wasn’t in any _real_ trouble, he was perfectly happy to celebrate his win.

It was decided, however, that running together was not for them. 

Perhaps rather naively, they decided to give the gym a chance. Steve had never really been a fan, didn’t see the point of running on a boring treadmill when beautiful O’ahu was right outside his door. But he was trying to respect Danny’s tentative relationship with nature, so once his partner’s legs had regained a consistency of something stronger than a wet noodle, they’d signed up for a trial week at a local place. 

They hadn’t even lasted a day.

Danny had headed straight for the weights, with a challenging, “beat this, jackass,” and _oh, well, that’s where those shoulders came from._

Not that Steve hadn’t given it his all. He knew very well that he was hardly a scrawny stick, but _hell,_ Danny was strong. Eventually, the gym manager had kicked them out, with an: “Officers of the law should know better!”

After a week of physical turmoil, they’d settled on the lanai with an assortment of ice-packs pressed to tender limbs, and had made an executive decision to limit their shared exercise to the bedroom.

Now, as Danny rolled off Steve with a groan, he flopped his arm over his head and breathed in deeply. He could hear his heart beating wildly in his chest, could feel the sweat pooled at the small of his back and at the nape of his neck, as the sheets clung to his skin.

“How many calories do you-” Steve cut off to gasp in a much needed belly-full of air, “-think that was, eh?”

Danny snorted, smacked his hand to Steve’s chest. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Rambo, I’m the one who did all the work. Why don’t you try getting on top for once, eh? Lazy lazy lazy.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot upwards in indignation. “Oh! You did not. You, come here, you-”

\------

Danny hummed absent-mindedly as he swirled his shaving brush into the pot of cream, creating a lather on the bristles. Beside him, Steve did the same, looking deep in thought. Unintentionally synchronised, they both reached up to their faces and began to smear cream across their warmed and wet skin. 

Danny had been pleasantly surprised to learn that Steve also eschewed the convenience of an electric razor, instead favouring a trusty pot of shaving soap and a well-worn brush. 

Gracie had been horrified to learn that her father’s brush was made of fine badger hairs. For his next birthday, he had been proudly presented with a top-quality synthetic model, and the old brush had been retired to the depths of the drawers. When he’d moved in with Steve, Grace had taken it upon herself to sharply assess Steve’s shaving paraphernalia. He’d sat on the edge of the tub, watching her, curious, but fully prepared to appease her.

Both he and Steve tended to be of the scruffy variety, but there was a pleasant calm to be gained from a Monday morning shave before work. The mirror was not particularly large, so their elbows knocked occasionally, and every now and then Steve would bump his hip to Danny’s side. For the most part, however, they were lost in thought.

The sound of small feet hurtling up the stairs broke their calm.

“Gracie, careful up the stairs, please!” Steve bellowed. “And don’t roll your eyes at me!”

From down the hall, Gracie yelped, “you can’t see me, how do you know I’m rolling my eyes?”

“I can sense it!”

“No yelling in the house!” Danny contributed loudly with a foamy grin.

The bathroom door creaked open, and brown pigtails poked into the room. “Snowmen!” Grace laughed delightedly. “Oh please, please, please, Steve?”

Steve sighed mock-melodramatically, resting a hand on Grace’s shoulder as she hoisted herself up onto the bathroom bench. “Come on, then.”

Happily, Grace dragged a fingertip through the mask of foam that coated Steve’s cheeks, jaw and neck, leaving a streak of pink and still bristly skin in her wake. Her nail came to rest at the corner of Steve’s mouth. “You’ve got a prickly cactus face.” She chose to ignore Danny’s snort, focusing instead on her father’s foamy brush. “Me too, please?” She plucked the brush from his hand, and began to lather her little face with foam.

“Yes,” Danny said sternly. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your beard, Grace, it’s been growing unmanageable.”

Grace giggled.

\-----

With a deep sigh, Steve deliberately ignored approximately half of his kitchen.

He absolutely did not pay any attention to the garish cereal boxes that sat mockingly next to his sedate brans and grains. He completely failed to notice the jug of sugary juice that neighboured his pitcher of honey and wheat-germ shake. He saw only his tender tuna steak, not the well-marbled Scotch fillet that rested on the shelf below it.

Steve still couldn’t quite believe that he now contributed financially to these dietary monstrosities. Even though Danny regularly pointed out that he was now helping to support the wheatgrass industry, and _don’t you know I could get kicked out of Jersey for that?_

Gripping the handle of his beloved pitcher, Steve retrieved the shake from the fridge and set about pouring himself a glass. “Heads up, Danno, germ alert!”

From somewhere upstairs, Danny shouted, “Roger that!”

Steve had almost finished his drink when Danny warily entered the kitchen, a hand thrown dramatically over his eyes. “Is it safe to look?”

“You’re hilarious, babe, really.” Steve washed the glass out and set it on the rack to dry. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

The drive to the supermarket was brief. With no communication necessary, they entered the store, grabbed a trolley each, and walked off in opposite directions. Steve prowled the even numbered aisles, Danny the odd, and then they switched – it meant they had to cross the entire store twice, but it also ensured that they didn’t meet halfway through. The fact that it all came home to the one house, the fact that they both had access to the banking records, was neither here nor there. By that time, it was too late. But if Steve even got a glimpse of Danny’s trolley in the store, civilized society suffered. 

Mission complete, they began to unload their bags into the trunk. To Steve’s immense surprise, he caught a glimpse of celery sticks poking out from the top of one of Danny’s shopping bags.

“Celery?” he asked in sheer disbelief. He could almost hear Danny’s teeth grinding together.

“You have something to say, Steven?”

“Didn’t you say that celery was for rabbits? Yeah, yeah, see-” Steve loaded the last of his bags into the trunk, “-I remember, it was this long speech about farm animals and ruminants and about how you were made of stronger stuff, a big Jersey boy and all that.”

Danny thumped the trunk closed rather forcefully. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He fetched the keys out of Steve’s pocket with a vengeance and prowled to the driver’s side.

Steve crooked his fingers in the air beside his ears. “ _I will never, under any circumstance, under threat of torture, under pain of death, like celery. You are incorrect, Steven, it will not grow on me. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong._ That’s what you said.”

Danny growled. “Get in the car, you ape you, you would have to be an ass about this, wouldn’t you. It’s not like I’m one breath away from heart-failure, you know, I work out. I lead an active lifestyle, or, I’m sorry, do you think I’m actually Five-0’s accountant? Isn’t it enough that I’m trying to make you happy by eating this stuff?”

Steve smiled. 

And if, much later, they snuck downstairs with a case of the midnight munchies and snacked on a block of chocolate that Steve had hidden away in one of his own shopping bags, well, nobody could blame them.

Compromise _was_ the heart of any relationship, after all.


End file.
